10 People With Incredibly Bad Luck

Only Person Hit By a Meteorite

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A piece of the Chelyabinsk meteorite is displayed before a hearing on Capitol Hill, 2015. The meteorite fell to earth and caused a lot of damage in the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. A similar meteorite hit Ann Hodges in Alabama in 1954. Jupiterimages/Getty Images

On Nov. 30, 1954, Alabama resident Ann Hodges became the first — and possibly only — person to ever be struck by a falling meteorite. The 8.5-pound (3.8 kilogram) space rock burned across a clear blue sky before crashing through Hodge's roof, bouncing off a radio and striking her in the hip as she napped on the couch.

According to astronomer and meteorite expert Michael Reynolds, the odds of a meteorite striking a populated area, let alone an individual person, are staggeringly remote. "You have a better chance of getting hit by a tornado and a bolt of lightning and a hurricane all at the same time," Reynolds told National Geographic.

Hodges' life didn't get much better after getting smacked by the interstellar traveler. Although she only suffered a nasty bruise from the incident, it thrust Hodges and her husband into the media spotlight. Overcome by the mob of people gathered outside her house, Hodges was transferred to a hospital to recover.

Next came a nasty court battle with her landlord, who claimed the famous space rock was hers. Hodges eventually won the lawsuit, but never found a buyer for what she and her husband had hoped would be a valuable object. Instead, Hodges had a nervous breakdown, divorced her husband and died at age 52 in a nursing home. The meteorite remains on display in the Alabama Museum of Natural History [source: Nobel].